Monday, August 3, 2009

A Look At Violence In Iraq In July 2009

All the major sources on Iraq noted a drop in deaths for the month of July 2009. This is despite a high number of mass casualty bombings. The pattern being set in 2009 is one month of high casualties, followed by a drop, and then an increase.

The drop in deaths in July happened despite a large increase in mass casualty bombings, those that cause ten or more dead and/or wounded. June, which had the highest body count in 2009 so far, had fourteen mass casualty bombings, resulting in 174 dead and 517 wounded. July more than doubled that amount with 35 bombings that had almost the same amount of deaths, 180, but a large increase in wounded, 655. McClatchy Newspapers recorded a similar surge in wounded as well, despite the drop in deaths. They found nearly 700 people wounded in July by bombs compared to approximately 400 in June.

There are four important observations to be made from the latest statistics. First, the number of mass casualty bombings a month may not be as good an indicator of the overall deaths in Iraq as previously argued here. Second, the ebb and flow of casualties since the beginning of 2009 shows that the insurgents and militias are only able to kill large numbers of casualties for one month, and then they need to regroup for the next, until they can do it again the following month. That trend is only seen in the death numbers, not the amount of attacks, which is little changed so far. Third, that doesn't mean they still aren't capable of inflicting large casualty numbers as the figures on the wounded show. Finally, July was the first month after the U.S. withdrawal from the cities. With the insurgents and militias reduce to terrorist bombings, assassinations, drive-by shootings, and the odd mortar or rocket attack, it appears that the Iraqi security forces are finally able to take the lead as the U.S. has been calling for years now. That doesn't mean that they are not still dependent upon the United States for supply, maintenance, parts, intelligence, and training or that if some large conflagration were to occur they would not ask for American aid, but it does highlight the fact that they can maintain the day to day security needs of the country at this point in time. It also shows that even with this new capability Iraq continues to be a very violent place, which is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

1) The U.S. has a whole range of informers that they rely upon for local intelligence that they are very reluctant to turn over to Baghdad because they're afraid the different political factions will take revenge on some of them.

About Me

My name is Joel Wing. I have been reading, writing, and researching Iraq since 2002.
I have appeared in Fareed Zakaria on CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, The Daily Dish Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq.
I have been mentioned in the books Iraq: From War To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining The Nation; Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith Al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cockburn, Iraq and Crimes of Aggressive War by John Hagan, Joshua Kaiser, and Anna Hanson.
My work has been published in Iraq in AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News Agency and Ur News.
I have written for the Jamestown Foundation and Tom Ricks’ Best Defense Blog at Foreign Policy, and I wrote a chapter for the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements.
If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com